


Shadows and Darkness

by Merfilly



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:37:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1326943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the JSA went undercover, the light went out in America. No one ever rekindled it, leading to a darker, suspicious country with a new breed of mystery men... and women.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows and Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in several installments, but I think it started as a project for Shatterstorm Productions.

_**1953** _

"It is hereby the judgment of this Committee that all the aforementioned vigilantes be stripped of their citizenship unless they place themselves under the direct supervision of the Department of Extranormal Operations." The pronouncement was made on radio and television. There was no choice, for they all loved their country too much to allow themselves to be branded non-citizens. They would not be able to use the flash and style that had wowed the world anymore. They had to become average everyday joes again, living seamlessly in American life.

They had to prepare the next generation, teach them better, more discreet ways. America needed her heroes, even if she didn't realize how sharply she had just betrayed them all.

The lesson was rammed home when the first costumed villain to turn up bent on global domination, Per Degaton, was confronted by a Continental Army and destroyed. American propaganda fell into the political sway of McCarthy and cronies.

America never woke from the Cold War, and urged the world to stay in paranoid suspicion with her... while the shadows became the only protection for good and evil alike.

* * *

_The Next Generation_

Dinah Laurel Lance was a woman with a secret. Anyone looking at her would never guess that secret, as she aspired to live exactly the way she was expected to. Like her mother and her father, she had gone to Academy and had gotten her badge young. Her grandfather's legacy was secure in her, for she had walked a beat and now answered to 'Detective' when things in Gotham got messy, which was almost daily.

Her secret, though, was one that could get her banned for life from being what she was. The kind of secret that made everyday people nervous and look away, before finding a law to throw out that would let them lock away the problem forever.

The secret haunted her, made the confines of her desk and job feel more like a cage on some days than they truly ought to be. She loved catching the bad guy, loved making solid cases that no sleaze-bag DA could undermine without buying the judge.

Maybe, if fewer judges could be bought, her job would have been enough to make the secret go away. If she could dedicate herself to her job, wholeheartedly, and know she was making a change, she could have ignored her secret.

That's what she told herself, in between the cases, in between the snatches of sleep, as she let her secret overtake her life to be what Gotham really needed and refused to see.

* * *

"Lance!"

Lance gulped down the coffee she had just taken into her mouth, then had to fight to not sputter or cough as it was still far too hot to just be swallowed like that. She swore, in her own head, at just what she needed to do now.

"Yes, Captain?" she asked as she stepped into the nominal office, passing a glance at the redheaded girl in there. The kid looked vaguely familiar to her, but then, the faces did tend to start blurring when you lived on four hours of sleep a night.

"New partner for you...you might have met though."

//Why in hell would I have met a wet-behind-the-ears rookie detective?// Lance asked herself to keep the buzz of 'partner' from making her explode. She got results, working alone. Only because Gotham was so understaffed, poorly paid, and so damned corrupt was she allowed to get away with it, but it worked for her after hours' activities.

"Hello, Dinah." The redhead stood and faced her new partner, and then Lance's eyes went narrow. There was no heading off the explosion this time.

"Captain Sawyer, I do not have the time or resources to babysit the Commish's kid!" she roared.

"I don't need a babysitter; I need a partner!" the brassy kid told the brunette with a fierce anger of her own.

"Tough shit, Lance! You don't have one, she excelled in profiling, and the Commish put a heavy lean on the idea of you being her partner!" Sawyer barked right back over the top of the rookie's words.

Lance fumed, counted to ten in three languages in her head, then glared anyway at her boss. "My ass is on the line if she can't hack it, and you expect me to just swallow this down with no damn sugar to sweeten the deal?"

"Yes," Sawyer told her firmly. "Now get her out there, working, and out of my office, Lance, before I find a political case for your desk!"

Lance cut a scathing look at the redhead, as if it was all her fault //because it was, damn kid should have waited for daddy to retire or gone to the Haven, like I did when Dad was still in// and stomped out, uncaring if the rookie followed or not.

"Dinah..."

"Lance. Always. On the job, it's Lance, and I don't really care to see my coworkers off the job; got it?" Lance said in a steel cold voice. She then looked at her partner in vague distaste. "Rookie..."

"Gordon. Or Barbara, even," the redhead told her with a stubborn set to her jaw.

"...Rookie." Lance would not get personal. She could not afford it. She had to build the strangest walls she could, get this baby badge trained...and find a way to ditch her. "You can start by looking over my unsolveds. Only four outstanding, and only one of them might be too cold. So dive right in," she told the redhead, pushing a stack of folders to her.

"Where do I work at?" Gordon asked, voice doing nothing to stifle her irritation.

Lance pointed to the desk that was serving as everyone's catch all. "All yours."

If she hoped it would result in a tantrum, she was sorely disappointed, as the rookie just went to work clearing a place and reading the folders.

* * *

Barbara had only just dropped into her chair with her Metropolis University sweats on, hair wet from a shower, when the security buzzed up that she had a visitor in the lobby. Upon learning it was her father, she smiled, mentally congratulating herself on guessing how long it would take, and told them to let him up. She took a minute, poured them both a drink, and was greeting him at the door with drink in hand.

"Hi, Daddy," she said, kissing his cheek. He felt that pang in his chest all over again that she was still too young to be doing the dirty work of trying to clean Gotham up, but she had acquitted herself well at the Metropolis Police Department in her uniform days.

"Hello, Barbara," he said, accepting his drink and finding a seat in her still half-unpacked apartment. "Getting settled in?"

"Like you don't already know." Barbara shrugged at him. "Tell me, Dad...did you know she's got a real attitude going on? I mean, she's nothing like I remember from when I was little."

Jim took a sip of his drink before he let out a long sigh and shook his head. "Remember, Barbara, she did her initial time over in Bludhaven. That town takes something out of people. And with Larry passing away so soon after he retired...she's bound to be rough around the edges."

Barbara filed that information away about her partner. The teen that had babysat her had been a relatively upbeat person. She had been nice to Babs, understanding about mothers not being around, given that her own had vanished. Most said she'd left town, since Larry Lance had never filed a missing persons report. No one else ever had either.

"There's rough, Daddy, and then there's her."

Jim looked her in the eye. "But you can trust her. That's the important thing."

* * *

The unauthorized entry into Wayne Enterprises was duly noted by the waiting observer. Her dark clothing did not conform tightly to her body, though the curves were evident enough through the gray and black tactical garb. 

The police should have been responding. True to her instincts, they weren't. She monitored the frequencies, and when it was evident that no car was being dispatched, she moved in. Her entry tripped neither alarm nor the senses of her prey. She had gotten expert at this type of covert operation, moving with stealth and speed to overwhelm her opponent.

She slipped in just behind them, and then the prey knew he was being stalked, turning with panicked speed to confront her. She had to smile behind the full face mask, her eyes hidden by the lenses in it, as the fight ensued.

By the time she finished, she had a few new bruises, and Wayne Enterprises would find a 'dumb crook' who had managed to trap himself in a utility room with a 'broken' door. It was also a new clue in the continuing corruption, that no police had come. Who was on the payroll, what did they want from Wayne Enterprises, and who was ultimately going to benefit?

* * *

If Lance had been hard-nosed on the meeting, and refused daily to call her anything but 'Rookie', she at least was a damned solid investigator. The two-woman team had the three live cases cleared by the end of the first month, and were making serious inroads on keeping the fourth one out of the cold case files.

Two days into having bucked off the latest new case to a junior detective, Barbara saw the first real show of emotion that wasn't anger in Lance's eyes.

"Rookie, come take a look at this."

Barbara came over and leaned in, looking at the photo in Lance's hand. The elder detective pointed out a very faint mark left near the body.

"I've seen that mark before." 

"Some kind of mud or shoe polish maybe?" Barbara asked. The note in Lance's voice, of eager anticipation, made Barbara look at her partner in time to catch the light of hope in Lance's eyes.

It gave Barbara more to think on, that night, as she had dinner with her father, about just who her partner really was, deep inside.

* * *

Gordon was moving too slow, or else Lance couldn't slow her own reactions down enough. The hail of bullets that had greeted their arrival told them they had the right place, but it was looking like a no-win situation. Working the case against Sal Maroni was going to get them both killed in short order, it looked like.

"Gordon! Drop!" Lance roared out, and to the rookie's credit, she did. Three months of working with Lance had taught her not to question, to just move, because the woman had a crazy instinct for the flow of a case, for the violent confrontations. 

Lance passed Gordon then with a primal scream of challenge...and the way _that_ made the bones of Gordon's skull ache...to advance on the mook doing the heaviest firing at them. 

"Lance!" Gordon yelled, at the apparently suicidal tendency, but the mook wasn't firing, not straight anyway, as his aim and concentration seemed to be seared by sharp pain, from the look on his face. Detective Lance was in his face, a well placed slam of her own pistol against the skull remedying his threat level, and throwing the other shooters into confusion. 

Gordon was up on her feet, moving and firing, Lance knew, but she concentrated on keeping the gunmen in the front of her awareness. A shot to the left took care of the one on the stairwell, an elbow got the first one's partner...and her blood ran cold as she realized her arm was off line, too far, to fire at the one aiming center mass on her.

A shot rang out, bringing the involuntary flinch of impending death, but her would-be assassin dropped instead, clutching at his former gun arm.

Lance gave Gordon's hands on her service pistol a quick look, before they turned their attention back to the matter at hand, with backup finally arriving to help them.

* * *

"You did good today, Gordon." Lance kept her voice neutral, but the woman had reacted quickly, coolly, and properly. They had managed to bag five gunmen total off the too-well defended warehouse, and enough crates of weapons to build a solid case that they were facing an all-out mob war. Captain Sawyer was talking commendations if they broke the case fully, but Lance was getting nervous. Maroni was a dangerous man to push into any kind of a corner.

"Lance...you took a severe chance. If I hadn't been there, or if I had frozen like the rookie you keep calling me..."

Lance cut her off with an impatient shake of her head. "What matters is you didn't freeze. You have to have the brass to get your ass in their faces, or this city is going to eat you alive!"

"You say that a lot...that it's the city."

"Gordon, if you can't feel the pulse and know Gotham lives, breathes, and kills, you picked the wrong line of work."

* * *

"She's as bad as you, Daddy," Barbara said into the phone. "Thinks the city lives and breathes. Oh, but she adds a new one. Kills. I really think sometimes that she needs a really long vacation somewhere in the middle of a desert or something."

"Barbara, she has her reasons," Jim told her in turn from his car.

"You keep saying that, but you never explain," she pointed out. She then waited through a thick silence.

"Do you remember the night that started my break up with your mother?"

Barbara had to mentally back pedal to try and figure out just where that had come from. There had been a lot of threats that whole month, and Barbara had been at a relative's on the night in question.

"I came home, and Mom had taken my brother back to Chicago. You never talked about it after that."

"Dinah was babysitting him that night." Jim had to take a very deep breath. "We came home to find her hurt, and five of Falcone's men tied up, unconscious. Your mother decided enough was enough, but also knew you'd refuse to move away from school."

"She was right," Barbara said, but her mind turned that over and over, curious. "Dinah?"

"Dinah is a daughter to Gotham City, in more ways than _I_ can look into," Jim said softly, a cryptic note in his voice. "Have to go, Barbara...another call." His line went dead to her, leaving her more curious than when she started.

* * *

The harbor stank. Most said it was the bodies dumped there. She wasn't inclined to disagree. Tonight, though, she ignored the smells that made it past the filters in the face mask. She flicked the lenses down that enhanced her vision, letting her see the gestures and faces of the two men talking down on the docks below her.

Sal Maroni was down there. She had nothing tangible to tie to him. People couldn't be convicted for just talking, and certainly not on the word of an anonymous do-gooder, when such people were illegal as hell anyway.

But she would remember that the Assistant District Attorney Adrian Fields was most definitely on the list of people to prove dirt on. There was no reason to explain his presence down there except if he was on the payroll of the mob. Now she just needed to learn who was the link inside the police department, so she could begin shutting down this corner of corruption.

* * *

"Look sharp, Lance...Dad's making a tour today," Gordon buzzed in her partner's ear. On the one hand, it was completely valuable as a head's up. Lance hated feeling like she was under a microscope, and she knew the Commissioner expected high things from the daughter of the man that had shown him the ropes.

On the other hand, it was an annoying reminder of just who her partner was, in some odd mirroring of decades gone by.

"Yeah, got it, Rookie." Lance settled into her desk, burying her head in the folders there. She had notes on the Maroni case, but those stayed at home, or in her head. Right now she studied the details on the Bertinelli case, keeping her head down as the Commissioner showed up, walking directly to the Captain's office.

Even though her eyes were down, her ears were wide open. Gordon was looking busy, ignoring her father's presence, which said some good things for her. Others...Bullock and Montoya had followed Gordon in, making rounds, casually talking to people. They were the Commish's goon squad, some said. Lance believed it, and made sure to steer clear. Bullock's temper made him suspect in a number of brutality cases, and there were old rumors about the Kane family and Montoya, leaving them on her list of do-not-trust-ever.

The visit with Sawyer was short, and not ten minutes after Gordon and goons had left, the captain stuck her head out. "Lance! Gordon! Get in here!"

The pair walked in and looked at the dead-serious expression on Sawyer's face.

"Maroni, nothing but. All other cases go to Allan and Conrad." 

"Yes ma'am."

* * *

Barbara realized something was wrong in the way Lance moved early in the day, but the initial query of 'what's wrong' had been barked down with a 'mind your business'. She tried to take on the heavier work of the day, but Lance was stubborn.

At one point, Barbara even saw the mottled bruising down the neck of the uniform, as if something very heavy or very forceful had impacted the older woman. Barbara had seen bruises on her arms and legs before, but nothing quite that severe.

"How do you get those bruises?" Barbara finally asked, her curiosity winning out against the frequent rebuffs from her partner.

"Kickboxing." 

Barbara could only decide the answer had been too pat, too prepared to be the truth. It left her very curious as to what that truth might be.

* * *

Her cases were twining closer and closer now. Evidence from one by day gave her leads by night for the rest. Finding the ADA on the payroll had let her see connections in the department, people who talked a little too much to Fields, or those in Fields' office. 

Maybe she'd gotten too close, she thought, crawling to a sitting position in her apartment bathroom. She looked at the blood, winced at how thickly it was smeared on the ceramic tile. Best decision she had ever made was to get rid of the carpeting, she thought with the part of her brain reacting to the shock.

She managed to pull her phone free of her inner pocket. A text was easier than speaking at this point, just '911' and send to the only one who could help her.

At least, she hoped she hit send as her world went black.

* * *

Her eyes slowly opened to find Pieter Cross keeping vigil near her. The blind man moved forward at her change in breathing, and shifted to sit on the edge of the bed. 

"You need to be more careful, Dinah."

"Thompkins called you?"

"Yes, Leslie did," the calm man said. "Short of a hospital or myself, you were going to die."

The woman in the bed pushed herself up, wincing at the pain. "New tech again, Cross?"

Pieter sighed ever so softly at her hard-as-nails attitude. "Yes. Michael helped me work it out. You may be ill to your stomach later today, but the nanites are effective." He took her hand to get her to focus on him. "If you can't go slower, take a partner."

"Partners get you killed...or worse." She looked at him with flat, lifeless eyes, her muscles slack in his grip in a message he could truly feel. "We can't afford personal, Cross...but I owe you and Holt for this."

He stood from the bed, knowing defeat when he felt it pounding on his shoulders. "We all will mourn, Dinah, when you are killed...and that day won't be far at this pace." He gathered his cane and bag, before leaving in the face of her silence.

* * *

"Barbara."

The redhead did not jump; her father was one of the few men she knew who could be that stealthy. He said it came from catching cops taking bribes. She thought it was from keeping her out of trouble when she was younger.

"Yes, Daddy?" She matched his pace as he walked alongside her.

"This case with Maroni...you might see things that don't make sense to you."

"You mean like how a five foot four woman managed to subdue a goon with a shout?" Barbara asked in a low voice. "Or how my partner is always on short sleep and temper...with bruises that don't happen at work?"

Jim's jaw tensed. "Don't ever...just don't press, don't talk about it. Just go with it, and you'll get Maroni put away, same as I got Falcone put down a few years back."

Barbara looked his way, but she didn't dare ask past the look on his face.

* * *

The blare of sirens, their flickering lights, was a comforting backdrop to Lance as she relaxed back from the adrenaline high she had been on. Castovalvi, Maroni's number one lieutenant in the harbor district, had finally slipped up enough to leave a trail. Only three weeks since the Commish had given them the clear priority to go after Maroni, and this was a high profile catch to show his faith was well-placed.

Of course, she should have expected one of his goons to pop up at the scene of the bust, only she was still too fuzzy from the endorphins of the fight to think quite that clearly, until Bullock was right there at her side.

Lance twisted away from Bullock's clap on the back, glaring at him. "Paws to yourself, Magilla."

"Just congratulating you; sheesh! You as butch as Montoya, or what?"

"No, I just don't appreciate being pawed," she growled, moving away. She looked at the uniforms handling the processing of the scene, spotted Gordon, and glared at the way the uniforms were brushing her aside. She strode over, mindful of the way she felt like one giant bruise wrapped around splintered bones and held together with twine.

"Brubaker! Grummett! You will listen to my partner here, you will give her the damn respect her rank holds, and you will stop screwing up my scene...you hear me?!"

"Aww, Lance..."

Her features never wavered out of the glare she was using. Reluctantly, both men looked at Gordon, with Brubaker clearing his throat.

"You were saying, Detective?"

Gordon looked at her with irritated gratitude...or that's how Lance interpreted it, before she walked back over to Bullock. "So why are you here?"

"Commish wanted a progress report, Sawyer said you were moving on Castovalvi, decided to come along for the ride," Bullock told her. She scanned his eyes, looking for the signs he was lying. Even when she found none, she did not come away convinced this was a man she should cooperate with easily.

"Next time, wait for the report."

* * *

"What do you mean 'he walked'? I had a good, solid..."

"We had a good, solid case," Gordon finished, a touch of emphasis on the pronoun.

Captain Sawyer looked at both women with displeasure written on all her face. "Someone mislaid the documentation of the evidence, and the prosecutor had to drop all motions. He walked."

Lance swallowed against the bitter bile rising in her mouth. "Captain..."

"Procedural errors happen. It's being looked into, and heads will roll."

//Yes, they will.// Lance snapped her spine stiffly straight. "Yes ma'am. Until then...I...we have work to do."

Gordon looked at her partner, but Lance only turned to leave, barely aware of Sawyer's parting warning.

"Be watching yourselves out there...and wear your vests."

* * *

"Lance...."

She had to pay attention to the redhead now, as the woman got in her way. Gordon had a tight look on her face, one that boded no good for their working relationship.

"Gordon..."

"I want to make this case, too." She looked so earnest, too young, and Lance couldn't stop feeling like she was caught in a vice when she looked at all that naive innocence. 

"Have to impress Daddy that badly?" she asked in a scathing tone.

Gordon's eyes flared with anger. "No, Lan... _Dinah_. This isn't about my father, it isn't about me climbing the ladder faster. This is about getting the city that much safer when we take down the slimeball Maroni."

Lance listened to the passion, listened to the fervor, and her guts twisted a little more inside her. She could have been looking into a mirror, ten years prior, for the way Gordon reacted.

"Maybe we'll both see it happen. More likely, we'll get a fancy televised funeral." She then sidestepped her partner to go back to her other life, where things were more black and white.

* * *

Black and white and red all over, she had reason to think late that night when Castovalvi's body damn near got her caught by the cops. She had merely wanted to tail him, to find out what she could about how Maroni was reacting. Instead she got to his home in time to see a dark car with tinted windows coming up. Her instincts had gone to full alert, but she had been too far away to stop the shot that killed Castovalvi as he got out of his own car.

The woman and children on the porch had witnessed the killing, and unfortunately caught sight of her as well.

It had taken nearly half an hour to shake the uniforms chasing her, to get somewhere safe to start reviewing just what she had to do from here. Castovalvi had been the sole focus of the most promising leads; now she was almost back to square one, and it really pissed her off to face that realization.

* * *

Barbara made it into the morgue to find that her partner was absent, and their most recent lead was on the slab. She listened to the coroner, listened to the cause of death. She then reported to Captain Sawyer, still alone.

"Where's Lance?" Sawyer asked as the redhead walked in. 

//Good question.// "I do not know exactly, ma'am. She mentioned, as we left yesterday, that she was going to go talk to an old friend, see if she could get a new lead to clench the case on Castovalvi." //True, but where the hell is she?//

Sawyer sighed. "I'd hoped giving her a new partner would sideline her ways a little. Alright, Gordon. Vest, all times. Someone knew Castovalvi was a weak link, and bumped him off. That same someone is probably going to get nervous about the cops dedicated to breaking the case."

"We've been in them..."

"All times, Gordon. No matter what. And tell Lance I mean it, when you see her."

"Yes ma'am." She left to go see if she could find Lance and put their heads together long enough to figure out how to catch Maroni before they did get that fancy funeral.

* * *

Lance was not surprised the full dawn found her walking the East End, civilian clothing retrieved from a hiding spot at one of the churches. She was too aware she needed to get in to the precinct, needed to be 'made aware of' what she already knew, that Castovalvi was dead, and with it, so was her case.

She needed to center herself more. Maybe Cross had been right, maybe she was pushing herself to an early grave. That part didn't bother her so much. Dad was gone, Mom was long gone in mysterious ways, and Selina...

She swallowed hard. It was no coincidence she came here every time she got derailed. It reminded her that she might make mistakes, but she wasn't allowed to wallow in them. She couldn't afford to make the ones that had cost her the one partner she had ever trusted with her life, trusted enough to love.

She came to the alley it had all happened in, so close to Selina's last home, and stopped at the mouth.

"I'll get him, Kitten...I promise."

She then walked on, calmer in her soul as grief freshened her resolve.

* * *

Both Gordon and Lance looked at Captain Sawyer with the same absolute disbelief and rebellion.

"No."

The dual voices actually gave Sawyer pause, and made her look at the two. A decade apart in age, nearly, and the entire time they had been teamed, there had been a quiet hostility on Lance's part, yet now Sawyer got them to agree so openly?

"There's a first." She looked from one to the other. "Three weeks, Lance. Your trails are cold and dead. Gordon, you'd be expected to be there anyway. Both of you appearing at the charity event will, with any luck, make Fields nervous. He goes running to Maroni...it might be a break."

Lance still looked rebellious. "Captain, it's pretty damn hard to wear flak under an evening gown! Gordon doesn't need to take the risk, especially if Maroni's played it quiet just to maneuver us into something stupidly public!"

"I can damn well choose my own risks to take, Lance!" Gordon snapped off. "You'll be just as exposed!"

"I've got years more experience dodging the bullets!" Lance snapped at her, as she dropped eye contact with her captain to whirl on the younger officer. She had no idea how strongly her past was haunting her, or that her usual mask had fallen to display honest fear and worry.

Sawyer watched it all, the unspoken communication, before they both faced her again. She had to push, though, had to be the one that might be ordering their deaths. "You both will be there. Lance, you will do your best to keep Fields in sight. Gordon, stay close to your father. Understood?"

Both officers gave her a very grudging acknowledgment and left the office to go find the dresses they would need.

* * *

Barbara had been doing these affairs since she was fairly young, in the absence of her mother. She smiled and made conversation as if it was second nature, pretending for all the world that she was not possibly in the trigger sights of a mob hitman. She even managed to keep her escort of the night, Jason Bard, from knowing just how angry she was that Dinah had not yet appeared.

She was still weighing that naked fear that had been in Dinah's eyes over the risk. It was so unlike Lance, and yet Barbara was beginning to think it was _why_ Lance was the way she was. Nothing in her official profile or records said anything about a dead partner. 

She heard a commotion over at the entrance, and turned her attention toward it. She had to bite her lip as Bruce Wayne came in with one of the many high society girls he kept on a string. At least it wasn't Kate Kane. That...that would have been a distraction Barbara did not need for the night.

Just behind Wayne...there she was. Dinah looked astoundingly beautiful. Her black hair was swept up into an artful coif, and the deep blue of the dress left no one imagining how shapely the small woman was. Bared shoulders and long slit up the left side of the dress tantalized as she moved, solo, into the event. Barbara had to sip her spritzer to moisten a throat gone dry, because she had never guessed that Dinah Lance could clean up quite that nice.

It was an image that would continue to unsteady Barbara, every time she glanced over to see yet another man trying to impress her partner. Even in her distraction, though, Barbara noticed one thing quite clearly.

Bruce Wayne kept the entire crowd between himself and the small police detective, a decision that Dinah seemed perfectly at peace with.

* * *

"Three informants found dead this week." Lance's voice was grim. "I think they noticed you chatting up Fields," she told Gordon darkly.

"Or maybe they saw you talking to Duquesne," Gordon shot back. Lance looked at her, aware of an undercurrent of something more than just one-upmanship.

"Kathy looked like she was ready to set fire to the drapes just to get out of there." 

"Kathy, is it? Just the daughter of one of the biggest names in organized muscle, and you're on first name basis with her?" 

Lance let her surprise at the tone show in her face, just a moment. "Didn't know my social life had so much importance to you, Rookie." She couldn't help the sly grin, anymore than she had kept the twist of teasing out of her tone.

"I'm no rookie anymore, Lance, and if you want IA all over your ass, keep making nice with Duquesne's brat," Gordon snapped. Lance's face went stone-cold again, ice in her eyes and voice.

"That a threat, Gordon? You going to bring Daddy and his goon squad down on me?" she asked bitterly.

The redhead flushed, looking down, backing away from the danger of alienating her partner. "Sorry...just feeling the stress."

"Just don't let it screw up your game, Gordon. Maroni's planning something, and soon." Kathy had been so helpful in letting certain things slip, once they'd gotten free of the charity event. Lance supposed any other woman would have felt guilty for using the rebellious nature of the young woman against her father's empire.

Lance just wasn't any other woman.

* * *

The word that Floyd Lawton had been seen in town chilled her enough to make her move fast after her shift. She had long ago plotted out the likelihood of which one was going to be the target.

The redhead was more likely, more of a statement to be made in taking out the daughter of the current Commish than taking on the daughter of the former chief.

Lawton had a reputation; he never stopped. Not until he had his target stone-cold dead, anyway.

She couldn't let that happen. Not another partner...

* * *

Barbara was never sure what made her look up that night. She was passing between some of the lower buildings in Gotham, on her way to her home. Her mind was eaten with the details of the informants that had turned up dead, with Fields' record in court, looking for the connection that would let them go after Fields to put the squeeze on Maroni.

When she looked up, her thoughts came to a standstill. That was the glint of light on glass, the vaguest hint of a human silhouette. She knew instinct was taken over, that she was moving, vaguely aware of yelling for the bystanders to get down as the first bullet made itself felt. Hollow point, punching power, and she couldn't breathe, couldn't do more than stagger back and fall down, a victim waiting to happen.

The second shot never came, as a figure impacted that silhouette, toppling both shadowy people over the edge of the low building. Three stories, and it should have been a debacle of human flesh on pavement, but the smaller figure impossibly caught a ledge on the second floor, while the man twisted and gained purchase with his hands on the fire ladder. His gun, however, fell to the concrete below.

Barbara was beginning to catch the tail end of a breath, aware her shoulder was the entry point, aware that there was no exit wound, but she could not tear her eyes from the scene unfolding. The small fighter let go of the ledge in a controlled fall, hitting the pavement on coiled legs, absorbing the shock. Before the gunman could clamber higher, Barbara felt her mastoid bone begin to ache, clearing some of the shock induced cobwebs from her mind. The gunman lost his grip, falling to where the small fighter was waiting. The motion and speed she used...Barbara could just barely see a feminine curve under the tactical gear...was blinding, almost inhuman in its intensity. 

That was when the sirens sounded, and Barbara watched as the figure scaled the ladder in no time, leaving the hitman unconscious and waiting for pick up.

* * *

Lance knew that on the one hand, she had to go see her partner in the hospital. On the other, she truly wished she could get away with not visiting. Then there was the third part, shoving her to get there faster, to be certain it had not been a serious injury.

_Selina, blood coming from her mouth, trying to smile for her, trying to promise it would be okay, and the smell of death so strong._

_Sound of **him** approaching, trying to say words of regret, or apology..._

Lance snapped her focus fully to the here and now as she barely avoided one of the street corner gangs on her Harley, ignoring their imprecations at her for her driving, because they were the ones who shouldn't have been in the street.

No, she had to see Barbara, had to know the redhead was safe.

* * *

Commissioner Jim Gordon had tried very hard to not play favorites once his daughter transferred back to Gotham from Metropolis. The most he had done was suggest that Sawyer, given her Metropolis background, might be interested in taking her on, and maybe Lance needed a partner these days. It really hadn't been that much of an interference, Jim rationalized to himself.

Watching Lance walk down the corridor, he wondered if it had been too much sentiment after all. He remembered the look on her face being on her father's, back when he was still learning the ropes. Then again, Jim rationalized, if his daughter could crack the armor she wore, it might save Lance's sanity and humanity both.

"Dinah," he said, pointedly emphasizing the off-duty nature of the visit.

"Commish," she answered blandly, pausing in the waiting room. "She allowed visitors?"

"Yes. Stepped out here to handle a few calls," he admitted. "Go on in."

She hesitated, looking from him to the door with the the two uniforms guarding it. "She say much about it?"

Jim heard that question, asked with all the professional levels Dinah Lance was capable of, and studiously ignored the other side of Gotham's protectors, not wanting to ever confirm the suspicions he had carried.

"Just that after she was shot, she didn't notice how the suspect came to be unconscious. Everyone thinks he must have lost his footing and hit the ground."

Lance nodded, then pushed on in to the room.

* * *

Lance saw Barbara only second. The first thing that impacted was the monitors, the IV, the hospital smell and bed and charts.

She forced herself to look at the younger woman's face.

"Hey kid," she said, low and soft. "Here you decided to catch a little vacation."

Barbara looked at her with narrowed eyes. "Is that what you're calling it these days? When someone tries to shoot me and gets stopped from making the hit?"

"Stopped?" Lance cocked her head to the side. //She saw...why didn't she report it?// She looked into the face of her partner, and read the knowledge there. //She knows. And she didn't...//

"I wonder just how much training it would take, to be willing to risk everything as a citizen to get to the parts of our world the law doesn't reach," Barbara said, as if speaking hypothetically. "How much dedication?"

Lance kept a silence in the face of that questioning, glad they were alone. She settled in the chair near the bed, looking at Barbara as she spoke.

"I don't even know what to call my savior," the redhead said softly.

"No name. People don't let them have names anymore," Lance said, almost unconsciously, two pair of eyes meeting again.

Barbara just nodded sadly, and reached a hand up, IV needle in the back of it. Lance accepted the appeal, and took her fingers gently.

"That should change," Barbara managed to say, just before the door opened to allow a nurse in.

* * *

Nothing seemed to change at work, Barbara noted, at least on the outward side of things. The secret remained between them alone, as her one attempt to figure out what her father knew had been shut down cold. She had to empathize, after looking back through some of the different busts from both Lance's tenure at the GCPD and before that had seemed to come out of left field.

The one that left Barbara aching at night turned up almost accidentally, as she did her research into all know associates of the crime bosses Maroni and Falcone. It seemed one young man, a brilliant criminal by name of Jack Napier, had managed to build a web of hired muscles that Duquesne would have envied. Falcone, Maroni, Thorne...all the major players had been forced to go through Napier to get the full support they needed for any major movement of arms, drugs, or stolen goods.

A woman named Selina Kyle had been a discreet informant on the stolen goods side of things, being one of the principle thieves collared early on. Her plea bargain had been sealed, but Barbara could read between the lines, when Kyle's body had been found not five months later.

One month after that, Lance had transferred into GCPD proper from Bludhaven's force. Napier vanished, and Barbara's father had finally collared Falcone with hard evidence that had been unimpeachable.

Somehow, Barbara was sure the chess piece that had forced it all into place had been Lance, working off the clock. Nor could she ask, not when Lance was still the gruff, inapproachable senior officer at most times.

It was only in those moments Barbara realized she was being watched discretely by her partner that she realized her silence on the matter had bought her something without price...Lance's respect and loyalty.

* * *

"You need to be at the corner of Pfieffer and Warner." The masculine voice was too well known to her, and for an instant, all her hackles rose. The line was dead, but she had to literally bite her tongue to keep from ranting at the person that had called her.

When Lance looked at her partner, she saw a tension there, like Gordon knew the call was out of the ordinary, or that she was reading the furious anger Lance could not quite keep wrapped up.

"Dispatch, this is unit one-niner-three-eight en route to corner of Pfieffer and Warner, routine patrol," Lance managed in a neutral voice over the radio.

"What's at Pfieffer and Warner?" Gordon asked.

"We're going to find out." //It had better be very worth my time, Wayne.// Even as she thought it in icy tones, she knew it would be. He did not risk speaking to her for anything less than real leads.

* * *

Harvey Bullock gave his partner the go-ahead to move, taking in the splash of blood on the wall, the door off its hinge, and the eerie quiet of a place that had recently been called in as an ongoing gun battle. He saw Renee take in all the signs, saw her cock her head slightly and then move swiftly to one side in the building. 

He looked around to see at least three men down, blood soaking their clothes or the floor around them. Further in, he thought he saw more, but right now...Renee called him over. He got there and what he saw made his skin feel very cold.

"Officer Bullock securing the crime scene," he called as uniforms joined them. "Get the medics over here."

He stared down at Lance, and wondered where her partner was.

* * *

"We have Lawton locked fully down, Fields under as full a watch as we can make it, and all our resources committed to finding your daughter."

"And Lance?"

Sawyer hesitated, not really knowing how to answer that.

"She will live."

"How soon until she is released?"

"That depends on a lot of factors, sir."

"Don't count her out, Sawyer; she's an amazing young woman, and she has to know Barbara needs her now more than anything else."

There wasn't anything to say to that, not in the face of the Commish's fervor. So she cleared her throat, and pointed out what the sweep of the place had decided.

"Everything suggests Napier is back in town."

"Then we're right on top of breaking Maroni, Sawyer, and we just need to play all the cards right. We can't let that joker escape this time when we do it, either."

"No, sir."

* * *

Consciousness came with the rush of pain, and the blurry images of Leslie Thompkins leaning over her from one side, and the oddly goggled face of Pieter Cross on the other one.

"I disagree with helping her do this," Leslie said fiercely.

"I concur, Doctor, but to deny her the physical health is to condemn her mind to a crippling blow...perhaps worse." There was another injection, and cold ice slid through her veins, before she blacked out on his last words. "Just sign the transfer papers, and I'll take it from..."

* * *

Barbara woke to the feeling of cool, wet, fetid air against her face. //Moved me again.// Her thoughts were slowly clearing from the mild concussion. She remembered the gunfight, remembered the shot that had distracted her, because Lance fell in so much blood.

Now, she only knew this man, the man with the pasty skin, like he hadn't seen the sun in years, who smiled incessantly, with the type of edge that would make a shark proud. She watched him, shuffling the deck of cards he carried, listened as he told Maroni time and again that it wasn't ready, that Maroni had to be patient.

The thing that scared Barbara most was that Maroni listened.

She tried again at the bonds around her wrists, ignoring the fact her legs did not want to cooperate with that kind of effort, and prayed she could be tough enough to not cooperate with the pasty man's sick plans in the least.

* * *

She refused to ask for help, not willing even now to trust in anyone but herself. She knew just where to go, remembering the face of her nemesis as the gun went off. She was not in her best shape, as there was only so much Cross and the others could do for her, but Barbara's life was on the line. She would not fail; she would not have a second partner die because of anyone else or because of her own lack.

Another phone call from her one time ally was hung up on even as he began to speak. No, he was not welcome on her hunt. His presence the last time had gotten Selina dead.

The factory looked more derelict than it had that first time. The sign was all but illegible now, and the roof so unsound that she knew she could not risk her entry from there. She could either use the front door approach, or the way she knew through the sewers.

Neither approach sounded best, but with a little improvisation, maybe both would work for her.

The world that oozed corruption in Gotham was about to learn the shadows could turn vicious against them, she vowed, as she put the tinkering skills of men and women from bygone years to work for her own needs.

* * *

Maroni was caught off guard by the first explosion, but his companion only laughed with the edge of dementia that had made Maroni and all the rest of the crime bosses fear him. No one had yet managed to kill the son of a bitch, something Maroni decided was highly necessary.

He yelled for Napier to get their hostage, for his own body guards to get to him...moments before the catwalk he was on toppled.

* * *

Further explosions rocked the underworkings of the factory, as small bombs were jetted in by common place radio controlled toy boats. They came in over the current of the refuse spilling out, all preset for the direction and left to run until their charges detonated. It made an effective distraction for the muscle inside, so that only two guards on the main door learned...briefly...of the entry of a small fighter with violence on her mind.

As she had predicted, secondary explosions and fires began, brought on by the residue of the chemicals once kept and manufactured here. She slipped from shadow to shadow, avoiding the unsteady catwalks for using her own devices to scale walls and get to the supervisor's platform where her prey...and her partner...were.

* * *

Barbara felt her wrist slip free, slick with sweat and, from the stinging, blood. She was just shifting to get the second one free when the pasty man bounded up onto the platform.

"No no no! Can't have the guest of the hour slip away before the party is full on!"

She got her arm up in time to block the first blow...and the second was aborted by the landing of another body on the platform. Barbara had the inane thought that she really needed to figure out a name for her partner when she was like _that_ , if she was going to keep being rescued by her.

"Oh, the songbird is here to play...good! Shall we have another dance, dear? Maybe you want to see how many bats are in the belfry? Or is it kittens on catwalks?"

"Shut-up, Napier," the woman growled, advancing in sheer rage. "Just shut the hell up!"

His laughter was irritating Barbara, but she kept working at her bonds, wanting to help with the fight. Pins and needles raced through her legs as she finally got the bonds on them loose, letting the blood return to them.

She needed to be able to stand, needed to be able to help. 

"The pretty kitty fell so far," the psychotic man chanted, dodging another vicious kick to the head, throwing a punch that was only barely blocked.

"SHUT-UP!" the darkly clad fighter screamed, sheer power thrusting the man to the end of the platform. "You...don't...get...to...say...anything!" she continued, while advancing on him, her voice lacking that unearthly tone now. Barbara reasoned it had to recharge, and wondered at its source, even as she kept willing sensation back so she could help.

"Oh, but it was such a wonderful thing to toy with the kitty who thought she had caught a mouse," the man said, spitting blood under the force of her next punch.

* * *

She could not think beyond hitting him, beyond making him shut up. Selina's eyes haunted her, reminding her of so many firsts. Their first meeting, their first fight, the first dare, the first kiss...so many firsts that had ended the night they had tried to tackle Falcone and his chief gun, Napier. She still blamed their third, more unseen partner as much as as she blamed Napier, but Napier was here, in front of her, feeling the blows of the seven different styles she had mastered. 

Every word he managed to say goaded a new blow from her, her fury letting her shrug off the ones he landed in retaliation. She would not stop, could not...he had taken Selina from her forever...

"Don't," came a soft word, in time with a soft hand firmly catching her wrist. She looked up, saw the redhead/partner/Gordon/Barbara...and she convulsed slightly as she dropped to her knees. "It's okay...I'm here. He's down, he's out." She listened, distantly, then looked down at the broken catwalk and the person trying to get free under it. "Our worm is on a hook, and I have to get down there. You kill this man...and I can't close my eyes."

The words must have penetrated for there was a brief nod. "I can't stay...." she said, hoarsely.

"Of course not. So go get the calvary, and come back." She took the handcuffs she could see in a tactical pouch, and secured the fallen man. "Go."

"You're risking everything by assisting me..."

"I can choose my own risks to take," Barbara reminded the fighter, before shifting so that she was no longer in the way of an escape.

* * *

Amid the buzz of a city caught up in a sensationalist story of a mob boss being taken down, two women found time to step out of their jobs, out of the lives they had both built for themselves. Sitting in the secured apartment of the younger, words spilled out slowly.

"Will you ever tell me your whole story?" Barbara asked. "About your mother, about Kyle, about your other life?"

Dinah thought about the question, sipping slowly at the glass of wine. She then looked back at Barbara, the rookie that was her partner, the woman that had once been a friend in childhood, and shrugged.

"One day, maybe. Not today."

* * *

"She looks like one of those femme fatales from the Silver Screen era of cinema," Barbara said softly. She did not touch the picture that hung so carefully on the wall, as she looked at the living space her partner called home.

Dinah's eyes flicked to it, still nervous and edgy over allowing the Rookie...more a pet name now...into her private space. "She was, in so many ways. I couldn't...couldn't think of much past her from the minute we both realized it was far more than friendship."

"I don't think she would have been much my type. I fall for the action heroes," Barbara teased her. "You know, the kind that rescue the damsel in distress from the cunning evil mastermind and his henchmen."

Dinah snorted at her partner's not so subtle attempts to lighten the mood with banter. "Next thing, I'll be spilling a glass of wine on you, and you'll have to wear my shirt, or maybe even a towel if you had to take a shower because of it."

That made Barbara laugh, a sensuous sound of full, throaty joy. She looked at Dinah with a rakish appraisal, then laughed again when Dinah just tossed her hair back over her shoulders. "I don't think that would be up to our partnership's standards, so far."

"Probably not. My acting abilities only go so far as it is." Dinah had to move the newspaper from her spot, before she crashed into the chair, one hand indicating the couch cushion nearest her for Barbara to settle.

"I don't know...there was a time when the raven-haired actress types commanded big money in Hollywood, and you've kept everyone...mostly...snowed about your nightlife." Barbara did settle, tucking her feet up under her on the cushion.

Dinah looked her way, trying to remember how to do this, to be easy in her skin and relax. Letting someone in again...but Barbara held her secret. Barbara knew the woman she had to be, and if she could trust her with that, maybe she could trust her with more.

"Dinah? You're staring at me, partner." Barbara said it with the hint of a twinkle in her eyes, a little giggle trying to bubble up in her voice, and it was that which made Dinah smile, a true softening of her features.

"You realize I'm too old for you, right? I mean, I babysat your brother, and you, every now and then." Dinah's tone was lightly teasing, which was absolutely amazing in Barbara's book as she weighed the changes in her partner over the last couple of weeks.

"Maybe I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll do if I misbehave," Barbara challenged her with a playful smile. 

"Careful what you wish for, Rookie. I'm told I have a domineering side," Dinah replied, rising to the bait, finding it easier by the moment to fall into the give and take of being human with another person.

"Anyone who can't see that has to be without a brain," Barbara said, leaning over the arm of the couch toward the chair, watching the way it made Dinah's eyes shift, the lines going from smooth and carefree to measuring, analytical. The redhead cursed herself for pushing so far, knowing the signs were just not good for her side of things now.

"Since you're none of those things," Dinah finally said, "consider yourself warned." The older woman then stood, reached out and dimmed the light to the living room before heading for the hallway leading to the rest of her home. She paused in the narrow frame of the opening, looking back at the dumbstruck woman on her couch. "Life's too short, and look what I've already wasted."

That made more sense than anything else that entire night, Barbara decided, rising and following her partner down that hall to new levels of partnership.

* * *

Even letting Barbara into her bed had not shaken Dinah from her cause, her drive. Daily, they fought crime as Officers Gordon and Lance. Nightly, the unnamed, masked vigilante set traps for her foes, luring them into revealing more of their crimes to the police, leading them into capture.

Twice in the first six months of this arrangement, Barbara had glimpsed other people leaving Dinah's apartment. One, she had recognized as a leading advocate of health care and social reform, the doctor of Gotham's poor, Leslie Thompkins. The other, a blind man with a cane, and a pet owl of all things, had not rung any bells with the woman.

Both times, Dinah had insisted on throwing Barbara out for the night, despite all the worries Babs had over the stiffly bound injuries Dinah's pajamas did little to hide.

Barbara Gordon was not a happy woman, but she was also far from a quitter. Somehow, she had to make Dinah see she wished to be a partner in all aspects of this dual life.

* * *

Dinah continued working on her case file, documenting the hard evidence on the latest suspect in a round of kidnappings. At least she had proven that the victims were coerced, though the means of coercion had yet to be identified. Thankfully, the department now had a criminal psychologist on staff able to help them identify patterns like this one. Doctor Quinzel had come highly recommended, and was proving her worth so far.

She glanced up, surprised to realize that not only had her partner called it quits for the night, but that most of the day shift had cleared out while she was distracted. She pushed back from her desk for a minute, stretching kinked muscles, and let her brain, for just a moment, clear the buzz of case information. That was when she saw the note resting at the edge of her desk, clearly penned in Barbara's handwriting.

"Meet me at The Beak."

Dinah frowned, as it didn't give a time, and it was unexpected. She didn't think there was anything that warranted going into the club run by Cobblepott. Still, Dinah was intrigued enough to go, and started shutting her system down.

* * *

Barbara was riding the adrenaline as the night began. She was thoroughly cloaked by the military gear she'd purchased discreetly and with prepaid cards. She knew what was going to be going down in the alley behind The Beak because of a tip. She had it all planned, down to their estimated time of arrival, and Dinah's habits.

Her lover and partner never came the front way. She always checked this place with a slow drive that allowed her to illuminate the alleys. And knowing her work habits, she wouldn't have noticed the note until the precinct thinned out, a bet evidenced by the recon that had said the bike wasn't up front in the lot.

Barbara just had to wait...and there they were. Major dealers in the Gotham drug trade. She slipped the taser gloves into active, feeling the funny tingle as they charged, and moved out of the shadows. Either Dinah would arrive in time to see this... or she'd see the handiwork afterward.

* * *

Dinah didn't even want to know how the three men had come to be hanging by their belts on hoists from the fire escapes, nor did she really want to think too much on it. If _he_ was active again in the low parts of the city, she'd just take care not to cross his path. She was nowhere near forgiveness. However, she did have to call it in, and the noise didn't roust Barbara out of the club, so Dinah was just a little disgruntled. She headed for home then, parking her bike so she could go inside. The alarm was set to outside only; Barbara had come here. That was enough to actually make Dinah worry she had missed Barbara more from working too late than the redhead deciding to blow off a date Dinah hadn't realized had been made.

She slipped inside, thinking of the right thing to say to a possibly miffed girlfriend, or at least trying to. She didn't see her in the living room, but the light in the bathroom was on. She made her way there, and came to a dead stop in the doorway, bracketed by the frame.

Barbara was in there, wearing the same kind of military grade pants and boots she used on her own night work. However, the shirt was off, lying on the floor with a hole in it, a mask similar to her own also discarded, and the redhead was attempting to suture a small cut low on her abdomen.

Dinah's mouth was dry, a mix of emotions she hardly dared to touch. Fear, definitely fear, she noted, but something... visceral and raw and needy beneath it. She felt her body tingling, the crisping of tight skin in reaction to the flood of endorphins in her veins. She was certain she hadn't seen such an arousing sight since... and the fear came back up, just as Barbara looked up at her with defiant eyes.

"All of it, Dinah. Both sides, hurts and joys," Barbara demanded. 

The older woman took those last few steps into the bathroom, dropping to her knees in front of the redhead, quivering inwardly, but silent and still for a long moment. She then reached out, taking the kit, and took over the mending of frayed skin.

"You'll have to learn to dodge better," Dinah told her, leashing that desire in her veins, dampening the fear in her heart.

None but a stone could have denied either for long, and Dinah was learning she was far more flexible than stone now.

* * *

Barbara listened to Dinah's soft breathing, knowing she should be exhausted after the very thorough, if tender, loving her partner had put them through. She carded her hand through dark hair, smiling when it did no more than make Dinah nuzzle against her breast, still soundly asleep.

She had gambled, and won, it seemed, finding the key to unlocking those last barriers keeping them separated. Now, all she had to do was learn to juggle things to protect all their secrets. Looking at her lover's head resting on her sternum, she was pretty certain that was going to be the easy price to pay.

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes for the AU**
> 
> The JSA was dismantled, and most went into hiding, finding jobs as close to law enforcement or military advisers as they could. There was a lot of moving around, as cosmic energies extended lives beyond casual observation's ability to ignore. Eventually, though, aging began to set in, and the JSA had children.
> 
> Dinah Drake Lance managed to get into the Academy in this world and became an officer for a time. Larry Lance lived longer, as there was no alien invasion.
> 
> No heroes took up the mantle the JSA had laid down. The work they did was always in secret...and their foes matched them after the Army was loosed on the more prominent JSA villains who would not get a clue.
> 
> I chose to use the true daughter of Jim Gordon origin for Barbara. I also kept the age gap wider than the current comics give. Continuity details are from all over Bat-Canon, both book and animated.


End file.
